


let her fly

by swallowedsong (bookstvnerdlove)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 20:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4406777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookstvnerdlove/pseuds/swallowedsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>just a little beth greene/bethyl something for by good friend, tumblr user weezlywrites, on the occasion of her birth.  because stargazing in the hot summer in the back of a beat up pick-up truck is something that beth greene would do. takes place season 4, they’re on the run. and maybe, just maybe, they don’t get separated. maybe they’re able to stay for a spell at the funeral home. and maybe they find a way out together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let her fly

When she was younger, Beth used to take a thick wool blanket, the kind that her mama kept folded up in the linen closet for cool winter nights, and she would lay it out in the bed of the old blue truck. It would be scratchy against her back as she laced her fingers together, under her head, and stared up at the stars. Some nights it would get chilly, the summer breeze turning to autumn, the humid days turning into crisp nights, the stars even brighter as the thick, hot air dissipated. She would do this, stare up at the dark sky, and all of her fights with Maggie, her fights with Mama, all of her worries abut Daddy would float away into the night. 

She misses that old truck, as her and Daryl Dixon are on the run from more walkers than they can handle just the two of them. The farm is so long gone and now the prison is in the metaphorical rear-view mirror and she’s done looking back. But she misses the sound of her truck, the rattling under the hood and the way she would fly through the air when they hit a pothole. She misses her daddy teaching her how to drive and then telling her she shouldn’t tell her teachers because she wasn’t old enough to learn in the eyes of the law and she wouldn’t want him to get in trouble, now would she? And when she asked him why he taught her then, he just smiled at her and told her that a little rebellion never hurt the soul, as long as she kept it at a little.

She doesn’t want to think of her father, of his gentle smile and the way his soft, white beard turned ragged over the past years. She doesn’t want to think about what she saw, hands gripping the fence at the prison, standing next to Maggie. Getting separated from Maggie. She’s only got one other person now, and she can’t pretend she understands why it was her that got stuck with him, with his quiet moodiness and his drunken temper. But she knows one thing, Daryl Dixon isn’t as tough as he wants to be and she can prove it to him.

.

Running through the woods at night, the bright moonshine burn behind them, it’s all she can do not to think about the farm and the truck bed. She used to wish things, futile, gossamer wishes, that somehow, she could have it back. And it’s there, somewhere buried, the idea that if she were back at the farm in the autumn, that she could lay against the ridged metal and stare up at the stars in the fire-brightened sky. She would let Daryl join her and he would reach out between their bodies and rest his hand. And she would clasp their fingers together and they would smell the fresh air and the burning wood and she would tell him a story. A story about the stars and their keepers, the gods and goddesses who shaped the constellations and a girl who used to love them all.

She never used to invite boys into her space, even when she was older, and beginning to learn the feel of hands along her curves and lips against her skin. Jimmy would always ask what she did on nights that he would call and her mama would take a message. He would find her the next day at school and she would smile at him and tell him nothing was wrong, silly. But she never invited him into her space. That was reserved for her quiet explorations of identity, of mind, and the vastness of the universe above her. Of body, and her hesitant touches that grew stronger as she learned herself.

.

She’s not sure what it says that she can see Daryl Dixon in her space.

.

It’s never far from her mind, thoughts about that day that she hugged him. And they’re stronger now. Now that he’s gotten drunk and ornery in front of her, whipping it out and pissing in the corner of the shack, yelling in her face like she’s strong enough to take it. (And she is. Strong enough, that is.) Now that she’s felt his heart near bursting out of his chest, her arms wrapped around him, the dirt and sweat of his back against her. 

At the time, she had been pretty sure doing so was a Very Stupid Thing, but she’d gone and done it anyway. Earlier in the day he’d growled at them as she kissed Zach goodbye. She’d barely paid him any mind before that, too busy kissing Zach, refusing to say the words that she knew he’d wanted to hear, words that she no longer has it in her to actually say. And then there he was,  _Mister_  Dixon in all his muscled glory, muttering something about a damn romance novel, looking like a disapproving older brother. 

She’d wanted to yell out to him, “What do you know of romance novels, Daryl Dixon?” But they weren’t friends like that, despite the times that their eyes have met while she’s been holding Judith and he tweaks the baby’s nose with a murmured, “Lil Ass Kicker.”

They hadn’t ever really spoken before, and they definitely never joked with each other. So she kept her mouth shut because she wasn’t not sure if the urge she felt was to sass him like a child or sass him like, well, something else. And wasn’t that a dangerous, flickering thought at the back of her mind? The idea that, for all that she had made an effort to watch him since he showed up at the farm a bitter, angry redneck, that he’s somehow turned into somebody that she might want to annoy. Though she’s hard pressed to think she actually could do it. Annoy him. She’s pretty sure he thinks of her - or at least thought of her till recently - as just a dumb, weak kid who hid her scars underneath a song. If he thought of her at all, that is.

But none of that erases her embarrassment.She’d hugged Daryl Dixon and he’d just stood there.

It had been so easy, too, easy to wrap her arms around him, to feel his biceps flexing, to feel his stomach clenching at the intrusion of her body pressed against his. She can still recall the slide of fabric, the way her sweater slid off her shoulder as she remained still, in his arms and yet also not at the same time. There was the scratchy slide of the wool over her shoulder and the cool air against her skin. Skin that felt hot, so hot, as if all the air in her cell was sucked into the space between their bodies.

 His hand touched her arm them, the barest movement of his fingers were on her skin as he stood there awkwardly. His touch was so hesitant, like he didn’t want to do it, but for some reason he did. Like he didn’t know what to do when somebody reached out to touch him. It send a thrill through her, goosebumps chasing that sensation of his fingers, sparking along her arms. She stepped away quickly, didn’t want to linger for long, in fear that he’d somehow see the way she was affected.

And she had been affected. With the strangest knowledge that one day he might make a liar out of her when she said,  _I don’t cry anymore_. 

.

Somehow this quiet moment between them at the table is more intimate than the night she spent huddled next to him in trunk of the car, hiding from walkers, their breath coming in short gasps and their bodies held rigid. Touching as little as possible, ready to move at a moment’s notice. No, that wasn’t intimacy, not like this.  _This,_ she knows with a sudden clarity, is intimacy. It’s in the way the knowledge washes through her, his responding stare to her question and she feels so silky for asking and yet somehow not silly at all. That somehow this has become important.

_Oh._

.

Three weeks into their stay at the funeral home they find it. Electric blue and chipped paint. The white letters on the back faded, but with luck it starts and still has gas to spare. They’d packed their bags in the morning, before the run, as they usually did. Didn’t want to leave anything behind because who knew when their safe walls would fall. But it’s been so long on the road, it feels. So long that they’ve been on their own. They leave the house each day, bags packed, and come home each night dirtier, and dirtier. The hollows under his eyes sinking further into his cheekbones. 

Defeated. 

Until now. Until the bright beacon of a truck sputters along the highway and they roll the windows down to air it out and they pretend like there’s a radio playing their favorite songs because it’s summer and their driving down an empty highway in a truck. 

Beth takes his hand because there’s nothing else she’d rather do. His fingers curl into his and he looks over at her as he drives. She smiles and it’s a wide strech of lips, a teeth-baring smile and he loves it, pupils growing larger, darker. 

Hotter. 

She’s still getting used to that look, hasn’t decided what she’s gonna do with it. But when he pulls over at night and says they should make camp here, she grabs his hand and pulls him to the back of the truck. They load their bags and weapons and she slides a can of preserved peaches out of her bag for their dinner. 

And it may not be exactly what she imagined way back when. Back when the fireflies came out at night and she had a mom and a dad and a sister and a brother. It may not be as calm as those night when she could stare up at the sky, with their need to keep watch and sleep in shifts, with their worries about where to go next and how to survive on their own. 

It’s not perfect but somehow it feels so  _right._

Because she knows that she’s gonna kiss Daryl Dixon tonight. She’s gonna feel that slide of his lips against hers and she’s gonna hear that hitch in his breath that he thinks she doesn’t notice whenever she touches him. If she’s lucky maybe he’ll even touch her back, his calloused hands on her shoulder, on her stomach, as her heart flutters in her chest. Yes, it’s not what she imagined it would be. But somehow that makes it even more perfect. 


End file.
